


What's coffee and flowers to the thrills the universe has to offer?

by LetheMedeaTranquility



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Case Fic, Kinda, Other, Set after Season 2, case in the background, communicating with notes, flower shop, not an au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-19 07:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13119294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetheMedeaTranquility/pseuds/LetheMedeaTranquility
Summary: A suspicious flower shop opens across the street; a bouquet left on the counter with a note for Detective Juno Steel pinned to it; a coffee shop that might not have been there previously popped up and a murdered John Doe with no papers what so ever.The last ones not that relevant.Welcome to Hyperion City.





	1. Chapter 1

Rita’s been distracted all day and it wasn’t by the streams. Of course, one was playing in the background; Cecil’s high voice muted, but he was clearly excited for some sort of execution or another that he’d orchestrated. That proved exactly how much Rita hadn’t been paying attention. She always said that watching Cecil torture people left a bad taste in her mouth. Juno leant against the door frame in between his office and hers, crossed his arms and watched. 

He’d been there a while. 

She’d spent the last ten minutes staring, from her desk, out of the window with a look that was akin to suspicion, but mostly confusion. 

“I don’t pay you to look out of windows, Rita.” He said, pushing off the wood and crossing the little room to perch on the edge of her desk next to a few monitors. Without looking away, she offered him a half full mug. He took a sip.

“We’re out of coffee.” She said and he peered out the grimy window to see what was so interesting.

Hyperion City peered back with neon eyes and bustling with people slinking in and out of the dark maws of alleys between the skyscrapers. Placing the mug of cold coffee, the last of the coffee, down on a pile of paperwork (a gory crime scene photo pinned to a folder swiped from a HCPD’s officer’s desk and a notice from their landlord proclaiming that rent hadn’t been paid for 5 months and, ‘no Steel, buying xem a cup of coffee doesn’t count’), Juno leaned forwards to look down. The sheer height of the office to the cracked pavement forced him to bite the inside of his cheeks to stop him from vomiting as his stomach protested. Even with the fire escape outside his window, he didn’t know what had possessed him to try to climb out his window before meeting –. Forcibly removing that thought out of his head before he could finish it, Juno caught sight of what was so strange.

A new shop had opened across the street. The warm light spilling out the windows seemed muted surrounded by the neon that cut through the darkness and smog that was the rest of his dear Hyperion City. It looked welcoming. A little door next to a large window. Actual, real, organic flowers where arranged into bouquets in the window. How did the owner manage to get real flowers into Hyperion City? It wasn’t like the Martian environment was good for keeping them alive. They didn’t seem to have any of the ‘special features’ that came from genetic modification like high-end pets had. 

Rita took the mug from on top the landlord’s letter, brought it to her lips and tipped her head back to finish it. 

“It’s beautiful, ain’t it Mister Steel?” She was uncharacteristically quiet, reverence reverberated in her voice and he replied with equal feeling,

“Yeah.” He never was a lady with the words for moments like these. Now, if this was fight or phone call or, well, anything else that didn’t require that odd emotion that bloomed in your chest and choked you, he’d have all the words in the world. Except this wasn’t that. This was a lady and his secretary-friend watching the standstill, snapshot of the front of a little shop that looked so out of place it seemed like big bad Hyperion City would gobble it up in a heartbeat if you turned away. It surely wouldn’t be open for long – the poor had no need for flowers that cost the money that could be spent on better things. A bottle of alcohol that burns so much you can’t taste it, not that you would want to taste it, and makes you forget the fuck ups of that day, perhaps. That’s what he’d prefer. If not just because he made a hell of a lot of fuck ups. He was a Private Eye, after all. 

And, unless you’re Alessandra Strong, which he has on good authority that he isn’t, you have those fuck ups on a regular basis. 

Rita pushed against him to get his attention and pointed frantically out the window. Juno got out of his head and pushed himself of the desk. He planted his hands on the windowsill and stared down into the quaint little shop. His new bionic eye was no Theia – no voice worming themselves into his brain, no zooming in or night vision- but it worked well enough. He could shoot straight and it always worked. He could see the silhouette of someone in the window tending to the plants. Fingers rubbed over the petals gently and a few stalks were chosen out of the bundles. Juno turned back to Rita,

“It’s just the owner,” Rita rolled her eyes and hopped up to stand next to him.

“Mr Steel,” she whined, “I haven’t seen anyone come in or out of that shop all day. I haven’t seen any activity whatsoever. I thought it was like a stream I watched where a detective,” Juno nudged his shoulder into hers and chuckled,

“Those aren’t anything like the real thing Rita. I’ve told you before not to believe anything on those channels.” She giggled and bumped into him good naturedly,

“Anyway, as I was saying, Mr Steel, the detective staked outside this little shop and it was, get this, a smuggling front!” She looked up at him expectedly, grinning wildly. 

“They usually are, Rita. This probably is one as well,” She raised her eyebrows, wriggled them and gestured to the little shop with her head, “You want me to check it out?” She nodded excitedly, bouncing on her toes. “Want to come with?” 

“Of course, Mr Steel, I thought you’d never ask!” She then pranced away to grab her coat. Juno left the window and collected his long, tan coat that Rita had bought him when he’d first started. She’d saved up her first few pay checks to get him a coat and hat so that he’d look like a ‘proper detective’. 

They stood in front of the door to the stairwell, the elevator having stopped working before they arrived, and Rita popped the collar of her coat. Juno looked down – albeit slightly – and, after pursing his lips into a frown, pushed his trademark stream-worthy detective hat onto her head before pushing the door open and starting the descent. 

It suited her.

~

A few minutes later they stood outside the flower shop. It had no sign and no distinguishable name. It was empty of people; even the person tending to the flowers was gone. Talking about flowers, they weren’t just in the window, they were everywhere. Bundles of the same type sat in buckets and took up the space inside the shop. A few small pathways where there to navigate through them and a wider one went from the door to the counter that sat at the back of the room. Behind the counter was an area sectioned off by a thick curtain. 

On the counter was a bouquet; sitting all pretty and wrapped in pearlescent ribbon, tied in an elegant bow. 

Juno side-eyed Rita, who’d pulled the brim of the hat near-comically low, and opened the door.

The smell hit him straight away. The air was perfumed from the abundance of plants, but it didn’t smell of that factory made, stale stench that was around the cloned flowers the rich had. Rita pushed passed him and started inspecting the different petals. Juno wandered to the counter, pollen smearing on his coat. He stopped short of the bouquet and squinted at it, suspicious. A note was pinned under the bow. Juno prodded it and, not sensing anything, pulled it off. The handwriting was eerie – almost familiar yet not. It said, ‘For the detective watching from the window’ in a cursive that was all wrong. It tugged at him as it hit all his switches, but he couldn’t come up with the answer. If this was a slot machine, all pictures would show cherries, except for the last. That’d be something like a clover, or a Martian mindreading pill. 

“Hey Rita,” he called over his shoulder, “What’re these flowers?” he snatched the flowers from the vase and turned to Rita, who gasped out a scandalised,

“Mister Steel!” and took the bouquet from his hand carefully.

“What?” She cradled them close to her chest and pouted,

“You have to be careful with flowers. They’re delicate!” With that she huffed and turned away, taking herself and the bouquet out of the shop. “I’ll see you back at the office. I’m going to try to find a vase.” They didn’t have a vase. He knew as much as she did that Rita would be able to scrounge up an empty whiskey bottle. Or, more realistically, she’d ignore the empty bottle and pour his half open one down the drain. If she could find it. 

 

“Good luck with that.” The statement ran hollow, dispersing into the air without being heard. 

Rita had already left. He should too.

Juno glanced around the empty shop and remembered the curtain. He strode over to it, placed a hand on his blaster and nudged it open. Nothing happened. He stuck his head around it and it led to a backroom that was filled with even more flowers.

He didn’t know what he was expecting. Stolen jewels and art? He’d been watching too many of Rita’s streams.

~

He was right.

Rita had found his whiskey and poured it away. Then she’d broke the neck off the bottle so that it was big enough to fit the bouquet. It sat on his desk next to the stolen case files from the HCPD. 

It was going to be a long night.

~~~

Juno was walking to the office, a few days after the flower incident, when he passed a coffee shop - he was sure that it hadn’t been there a week ago, but Hyperion City was ever changing. He didn’t know what possessed him to do what happened next. Perhaps it was Rita’s incessant whining about the lack of coffee in the office and how he was a cruel boss for not buying anymore, maybe it was the desire to ask how they’d known Juno was watching them from the five floors above the street. Either way, Juno Steel ducked into the shop.

 

It was warm. That was the first thing he noticed. The coffee shop was warmer than the bitter artificial atmosphere inside the dome. A little bell chimed when the door opened and the barista glanced at him. 

Somewhat out of sorts, Juno buried his hands in his pockets and stepped up to the counter to order. He looked up at the holographic menu on the wall behind the counter and balked when faced with a near infinite amount of drinks. 

“Are you alright?” Inquired the barista, seeming humoured at his reaction. The teen’s voice had a lilting accent and they tied their hair into a bun on top of their hair – showing off a fluffy undercut. 

“Just coffee,” Juno settled on, suddenly struck with the startling feeling of being old. He was just thirty-eight - this was ridiculous. He could order a drink. The barista rolled their lips in an effort to stay professional and not laugh. “One black, the other with sugar and milk and one of anything.” 

“Anything?” They raised their eyebrows, sceptical, and Juno nodded. The order was rung up. The little barista got to work.

~

Striding down the streets carrying two coffees and a caffeine and cream monstrosity, was honestly not what Juno Steel was banking on happening that day. The barista, who he’d found out was called Jas, had recently came to Mars, hated Jazz music and aspired to pet every cat they could. Along with a one-sided debate whether green or blue was their favourite colour, had let him borrow his marker to write on the cup of the ‘Anything’ he’d ordered. Jas had rattled off the name of the drink when they’d presented it to Juno with a smile that flashed their teeth.

His office was a few blocks away and he got there without issue; ruminating over the case he was working on. A John Doe murdered in his hotel room. Any paperwork had been stolen from the scene of the crime. At the sign of the victim being unknown, a nobody, the HCPD had sent Omar Kahn to discreetly get rid of the report. It’d be swept under the rug. As the only half decent cop in Hyperion City, this didn’t sit well with Kahn. He’d very discreetly stormed past Rita, flung Juno’s door open so hard that it cracked the plaster of the wall and threw the police report onto his desk which such force it skids over it, onto Juno’s lap. Juno had opened it to find a few pictures that nearly made him lose his lunch and, if he was younger and less experienced in this line of work, lose a few nights of sleep along with a wad of creds that ensured he could pay Rita.

No leads could be found and nobody had any idea of who this man was. Even Rita couldn’t find anything. Yet.

He looked down at the drinks in his hands and pushed his back against the door to open it. The smell of flowers overpowered. It looked the same as it had the other day. No flowers had wilted. Except that the counter seemed to be abandoned mid use. A half-finished bouquet surrounded by reels of different coloured ribbon. A pair of ornate scissors lay over the end of a blue ribbon. They seemed familiar. The owner can be heard pottering about in the back room. Juno leaves the caffeine next to the scissors and leaves the shop. 

The words ‘How did you know we were there?’ scrawled around the cup in black marker. 

Juno stepped into the cold and crossed the street. 

The heavy weight of a gaze on his back didn’t make him turn. 

When he got back to the office and checked the stolen items list issued by the HCPD, the scissors were at the top of the list.


	2. Chapter 2

Rita was stood in front of the office when he’d finally emerged from the stairwell and it put him on high alert.   
“Rita! What’s wrong? Is it about the rent?” She shook her head, bounded forward to take a coffee cup from his hand and squealed slightly.   
“Not at all!” she then frowned, “Although, I am concerned about the rent. Landlord ain’t been around yet this month and xe are terrifying when xe want to be. Y’know, Mister Steel, I saw a documentary on landlords who took people’s kidneys if they didn’t pay their rent.” Before Rita worked herself up into a tizzy, Juno set a hand on her shoulder and said,  
“I won’t let the landlord take your kidney, Rita.”  
“Oh, Mister Steel! I knew you cared. I was talking to Frannie and she said that you must to put up with me for all these years and I was like, sure of course he cares. I mean, I take over the business when you’re ill. Detectives Rita and Steel!”   
“You lock me in my apartment and take the cases yourself.” Juno reminded her. She waved it away and continued,  
“Anyway, Mister Steel,”  
“Why aren’t we inside the office?” Interrupting Rita’s story, his harsh tone made her stop. She looked at him, adjusted her plum suit jacket and smiled,  
“There’s flowers.”

Juno pushes open the door and there they are. He stands in the door way.   
“We don’t have a vase.” Rita moves around him, brushing against him, to sit at her desk, grinning wildly and trying to smother her giggles with coffee.  
“It was shipped with one!”   
“Shipped?”  
“Oh yes. I’d just opened up the office this morning and was turning on my morning stream – y’know, the one about the Kanagawa’s morning routine – and it was getting to a good bit. Cecil was making breakfast with his new beau. They look so dashing together, you should have seen them Mr Steel! They got together not that long ago.”  
“Rita, the flowers.” He prompted. He didn’t really care about what Cecil was up to as long as he stayed away from Juno. Cecil had a new ornament to hang off his arm every other week, now he wasn’t grounded.  
“There was a knock at the door, so I got up to get it and there was a man with these flowers in that vase. So, I put them down and waited outside for you as I didn’t really get the note. What if there was a bomb? It wouldn’t surprise me. They’re putting bombs in everything these days!” 

Juno strides over to the vase and looks down at it. The edges curl out and over, moulded in a way to suggest two arching leaves. An off-white, rectangular card was nestled in the cellophane wrapped round the flowers. He fished it out, read it and shook his head. Taking a sip of his coffee, he curls his other arm around the vase and, feeling the water slosh around inside, carefully lifts it up. The door to his office slides open as he approaches it. He steps through and, as it slides closed, calls back to Rita,  
“Don’t interrupt me.” Her reply is lost as the door seals closed. 

It’s eerily silent inside his office. It’s too early for anything other than alley fights and desperate people travelling to jobs that start ridiculously early. Even Steel’s Detective Agency (name soon to change) didn’t officially open until the next hour came, but it had been proven that getting there early gave them time to prepare before any client came at the opening time. Juno doesn’t flick the light on and walks through the gloom to his desk. He places the vase on his desk and slouches in his synth-leather chair. He twisted his wrist to look at the oh-so-familiar writing and reread the note.

Dearest Detective,   
It is in my interest to know many things. Any Private Investigator who is any good, especially in Hyperion City, would be suspicious of a new business. Also, I saw you and your secretary watching from the window.  
Thank you for the other day – it was nice.

In a ridiculously hopeful move, Juno opened his middle draw and brought out a slip of paper. He smoothed them both next to each other on the desk.

The older note curled at the edges and was starting to discolour. Languid ink strokes made by a man who could steal the stars from the sky with clever fingers and fashion them into a necklace or a crown. The ink had begun to slightly fade and smudge from late nights and early mornings of reverently tracing the cursive with his fingers while nursing the next best thing he would get to a therapist - a bottle. Habitually, he brushed the tip of his thumb over ‘your better half’ and jerked his hand away. He didn’t deserve to pine over him. Not after leaving him without a note.

The cursive on the notes in front of Juno where different. Like all cursive, they had their similarities. However, the angle was different. One leaned to the left, the other to the right. 

This was wishful thinking. 

Peter Nureyev wouldn’t come back to Mars if you bribed him to. Always another planet more beautiful than the last and many would be more beautiful than corrupt, broken Mars and the broken detective that left him behind. 

Hit note goes back into the middle drawer, next to a picture of his brother. The note from the flowers goes with its twin and the HCPD report about the scissors; in the draw on the left. 

He leaves the flowers where they are; a sunflower with sweet pea and ranunculus around it.

~  
The next day, Juno goes back to Jas' coffee shop. He goes into the shop and there they are, cleaning a glass and grinning at him.   
"Good Morning, Steel. The usual?" Juno looks at the intimidating board behind the sight figure of Jas.   
"Sure and something else." Jas places the glass down and raises his eyebrows,  
"Make you anything?"   
"Yes." Jas seems to smother a smirk and bounces to sit on the counter, facing the board. "That must break health and safety rules."  
"It's not like anyone else is coming for coffee. Every one goes to the one the Prince of Mars used to work at." Juno turned and observed the empty tables, not moved since the last time he was here. Or ever at all "Did they like the macchiato from last week? The one you admire, I mean."  
"I'm not admiring anyone."   
Jas places one hand behind them on the counter and arches their back so that they are looking at Juno upside down. They raise their eyebrows.   
"So you aren't admiring them. Are they admiring you?"  
"No." The answer is short and defensive. Jas hums like they don't believe him and pushes them-self off the counter top.  
"Right. Have you ever talked to them?" Juno raises an eyebrow, points at the eyepatch covering the right eye and then quips,  
"Sure. We have tea and cakes every day." Jas raises their hands in the common surrender position and begins to collect to-go cups. 

"Hows the case going, detective?" Jas asks, while pouring milk into a jug,  
"Which one?" He feels old, standing before the energetic teenager. Jas looks into his eye from beneath his hair and grins. It's a sharp grin. He doesn't know why he thinks that it's sharp, but it is.  
"Any of them."  
Juno rolls his eye and only has one case to talk about that wouldn't violate any signed treaties or agreements - John Doe.  
"We still can't find where John Doe came from," Jas hisses sympathetically and nods, turning to pump some syrup or another into a cup. "Or who he is. The HCPD won't let anyone see the body or release the forensic report. That's if they've even brought in a pathologist to make one."   
"Haven't you checked the space ports?"  
"First thing I did. He came in on a smuggling ship from the outer rim." 

Jas places the coffees on the counter and holds out a marker for Juno to take.  
"If we're talking about Outer Rim, there is rumor of a gang who come from one of the planets. Strictly confidential, of course." Jas beckons Juno in close, "They say that they hang in the Triad's old haunts."  
Juno scribbles a message on the cup and glances back at Jas, who grins with all his teeth. 

A sharp grin. Canines filed into points and clever eyes that shouldn't be in a child's face.

He nodded, took the drinks and walked out the shop. 

Whenever he blinked, he could see that sickly red light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The flowers have meanings. Sunflowers - admiration, pride, gratitude, appreciation. Ranunculus - 'You are radiant', 'I am dazzled by your charms'. Ranunculus, Wild - Ingratitude. Sweet Pea - 'delicate pleasure', 'departure'.


End file.
